I recently spent 9 days in Montana, visiting my family. Usually my mom, who is now 64 years old, fiddles with her garden and does 'mom' stuff. Things have changed.

Maybe it's the fact that she's spent 15 years in the boonies with little social interaction aside from my dad. Maybe it's a really late mid-life crisis. While I haven't quite got my finger on it yet, one thing is for sure. My mom has become a spunky old broad!

First it was fishing. I should start by telling you that my dad taught me and my sister how to fish when we were barely able to get bait properly secured to a hook. Pop and I spent probably 50 days a year out fishing in the High Sierra's in California and all over western Montana. Times that by about 30 years and you've got a LOT of fishing experience. So, between dad and I, we're a pretty formidable pair when it comes to pulling our gilled friends out of the water.

The closest lake to their house has always been filled with a variety of species, up until a couple years ago. Fish & game literally killed every living thing in the water, and started over by stocking the lake with some pretty nice sized Rainbow trout. Pop and I went out a couple nights on the paddle boat, and while we weren't knocking 'em down, we each grabbed one monster apiece. We did this two nights in a row, both times ending when the fish stopped biting.

My mom went out the next day, threw a few hooks out and caught 2 behemoth Rainbows in a span of about 5 casts. WTF?? I can't imagine my poor dad right now, being trash-talked by my mom. I'm glad my vacation is over so I don't have to hear it, lol.

So then good 'ol mom wanted to play online poker. She got the bug after playing in a tournament 'just to kill time' in Idaho one night while my dad went tool shopping. Something like 45 players, $60 buy-in, and mom took 3rd place in her first ever tournament!

Afraid she'll accidentally set off nuclear weapons, mom doesn't like to touch the computer without me around. So, while I was up there visiting, she made it a point to have me set her up to play online. I downloaded Pokerstars and even got her the new Pokerstars sign up bonus (which she thought was a scam). "Why would they just give money away? What's the catch? Are they going to send my name off to mailing lists all over the world? Am I going to get spam email now? Is someone going to try to sell me a timeshare? I don't want any damn timeshares, tell them to keep their phony scam 'bonus." Oye.

I finally got her to understand that online poker bonuses are the same as perks at a live casino - something she could wrap her mind around. An hour after she made her first deposit, she won her first sit-n-go. It was just a $5 SNG at Pokerstars, but still...her second ever tournament? Her account is already over $270, starting with $200 only 8 days ago. WTF??

So, here's the email I got this morning...inspiring this post.

"Hey Jess! Just played my first Omaha hilo tournament this morning. I won!!! Guess dad will have to accept it when I start beating him from now on - ha! I have $273 in my account now and i'm not telling dad. instead I wanrt to make it more and the next time you come up you can get me an account at another room for me to play at. Dad still thinks i like gambling too much, so it's better if he doesn't know.

We ate yours and dads fish last night...yummm. We gave mine to bill and judy because it's too much fish for us. Even if we share one of them, we'll waste to much good meat so we gave them away."

Lol...her fish are too much meat even if they share one. You go mom!